Yalesville and North Farms Volunteer Fire Departments in Wallingford to merge

Published 7:50 pm, Thursday, December 10, 2015

WALLINGFORD >> Two of the town’s volunteer fire departments are being consolidated into one by the end of the month, Fire Chief Richard Heidgerd said Wednesday.

Heidgerd said in a statement that the consolidation of the Yalesville and North Farms departments “will help strengthen the Wallingford Fire Department Volunteer Division and support our response capabilities.”

“The Wallingford Fire Department plans to continue using the Station 5 (Yalesville) building for public safety purposes and expects no adverse impact on emergency response capabilities to these changes,” Heidgerd said.

Heidgerd wasn’t available for comment Wednesday on whether the consolidation effort would yield any financial savings for the town. He told the New Haven Register in October that consolidation was one option being considered by the department in response to the dwindling number of volunteer firefighters with the Yalesville department.

Over a six-month period earlier this year, the Yalesville department had only been able to respond to about a third of the fire calls, Heidgerd said at the time.

Mayor William Dickinson Jr. said the Yalesville station will be used for storage of firefighting equipment and as a training facility. The fire station is located at 143 Hope Hill Road.

“This gives us better efficiency, better response times by having better manpower at one station,” Dickinson said.

The town is building a new $3.9 million fire station for the North Farms department at 884 North Farms Road, near Interstate 91. It is scheduled to open sometime next spring, said Tim Wall, chief of the North Farms Volunteer department.

Wall said the two volunteer fire companies already have begun training together. He estimated that North Farms department has about 28 volunteers while Yalesville has about 15.

Dickinson said by keeping the Yalesville fire station in use for storage and training, the town is keeping its options open.

“If we get more volunteers then maybe we can station some of them here,” he said. “For time being, we think this is a good idea.”